Living a Nightmare
by King Baka
Summary: My first place entry to Eternal Destiny's 2015 Halloween Contest.


Prompt: No Cure

Title: Living a Nightmare

Author: King Baka

Word Count: 1996

Genre: Canon

Rating: Provocative

Warnings: Character Death (or undeath)

Summary: There is nothing he can do for her. She is incurable. And he is living a nightmare.

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha. I will make no money from this fic; I write for my own enjoyment and the enjoyment of my readers.

* * *

Thunder roared overhead, the sky flashing with the storm's rage. Rain pounded the earth, soaking an unmoving hanyou to the bone. His body was chilled, but his mind was even colder, numbed by shock which left him hopelessly paralyzed before the approaching apparition.

She walked with a slight limp, this creature, perhaps a sign of a decaying tendon in her calf. She was dead, after all, the nauseating scent of it surrounding her like a dense fog. Her clothing was sodden and filthy, her once silky hair matted and tangled with insects and forest debris. The long legs peeking out from beneath her pleated miniskirt no longer possessed the smooth vitality of youth, but appeared worn, ravaged by time which had not actually passed. Her arms stretched toward him, her fingers bent like talons, reaching for him as a starving animal might reach for food. Her lips were drawn back, baring her teeth as a vicious snarl rasped through her throat. It was her eyes which frightened him the most. No longer the breathtaking windows to a soul which knew him better than any other, they were now glazed over with malice, feral and unrelenting.

How could this have happened? He had sent Kagome back to her own time so she wouldn't catch the mysterious sickness which was killing people in feudal era, then bringing them back as the undead, a walking scourge upon the living. How could she have become ill? He had checked her scent with extreme care for any sign of the sickness before sending her back. So Kagome couldn't possibly be…one of them. She couldn't…

Some deep-seated instinct of self-preservation snapped Inuyasha from his denial-fueled stupor just in time to prevent the zombie from sinking her teeth into his neck. He shoved her away, stumbling back a few steps in renewed horror. But she didn't go down. Instead, she regained her balance and stalked toward him again, snarling ravenously.

As much as Inuyasha wanted to sink back into denial, that fantasy world where Kagome was back in her own time, safe and sound, he knew that his senses didn't lie. They hadn't lied when he told Miroku that Sango was falling ill, nor for any of the other victims who had succumbed to the mysterious sickness. No matter what they did, there was no cure. And once a person had turned, there was only one way to stop them.

Here his denial made a desperate last stand, but he pushed through it as tears blurred his vision. He did not let Miroku entertain fantasies of redemption when Sango rose from her deathbed with those same cruel, inhuman eyes. Instead, he did what needed to be done. It was almost a relief for the devastated monk when he too felt the telltale signs of the sickness. He took the body of his beloved into the center of a large field, pointed his hand to the sky, and left his kazaana open until it consumed them both.

How Inuyasha longed to follow his friend's example, after he was once again forced to kill someone he cared about with his bare hands. But that means of escape was unavailable to him. He had failed to protect Kagome, but he would not fail to carry on her legacy. He would look after Shippou, as she would have done. Even if the orphaned kitsune bore lifelong scars, Inuyasha would not abandon him. He would also take care of the surviving villagers, as Kagome had so desperately wanted to do before he finally convinced her that she could do no good here. Her miko abilities, so resilient against other evils afflicting the world, had no effect on the sickness.

She lunged for him again, and this time he stepped nimbly around her snapping jaws, wrapping his arm around her torso from behind and pinning her arms to her sides. She attempted to bite him, her head swiveling around with unnatural flexibility. Inuyasha closed his eyes, willing this to be a nightmare. But she only continued to struggle in his grasp. With a shaking hand, he reached up and caressed her face, weary of her jaws. Her cheek, her nose, her lips…all were despairingly cold, locked forever in the inescapable grip of death.

The full measure of his failure hit Inuyasha in a rush. All of the things he should have said to her, all of the feelings he should have shared, some of which were only becoming clear to him in this moment when it was already far, far too late. He sobbed, his tears joining the rain running relentlessly down his cheeks. And as the lightning flashed overhead, he drove his claws through his beloved's skull, and her struggles finally ceased.

Inuyasha lay her lifeless body down in the grass. Then he tilted his head back to the heavens and screamed.

* * *

"Tadaima!" Kagome called as she stepped into the foyer.

"Welcome home, dear," her mother greeted from the kitchen.

"Inuyasha hasn't been pestering you too much, has he?" she responded, ears perked for the inevitable blustering fit from said hanyou. When only silence ensued, she frowned in consternation.

"I actually haven't seen Inuyasha all day," her mother replied. "Maybe he's still in your bedroom."

Kagome shook her head, immediately dismissing that idea. This afternoon was her and Inuyasha's agreed-upon time to return to the feudal era, so she had expected him to be rushing her as usual. Then again, he hadn't exactly been himself when she left him this morning. Last night, while trying to find _something_ to keep the distracting hanyou out of her hair so she could study, she had stumbled upon a twenty-four hour zombie movie marathon on TV. Thank the Kami for Halloween. To say that Inuyasha was fascinated would be an understatement. She left him in the living room later that night, after making sure he knew how to turn the TV off without breaking it.

She needn't have bothered. She found him still slumped into the couch the following morning, eyes glazed over and heavy-lidded. Rather than going to sleep when his fatigue hit him - fatigue built up over weeks of traveling and doing battle - the idiot had forced himself to stay awake so as not to miss a single solitary moment of zombie-induced carnage. The sound of her reproachful voice broke him out of his stupor, and a short while later he trudged up the stairs, probably to fall asleep on her bed as he'd done once before. Any attempts to communicate with him were rebutted with noncommittal grunts, so she let him go.

He couldn't possibly still be asleep, could he? Deciding on a stealthy approach just in case, Kagome crept quietly up to her bedroom and slowly cracked open the door. The curtains were drawn, but there was still plenty of light for her to make out the silver-haired boy on the bed, snoozing on his side. Kagome's gaze softened, her lips quirking in an adoring smile. This was only the second time she had seen him like this, and both occasions had taken place in her bedroom. She was glad that he finally had a place where he could let down his guard and enter truly deep sleep.

His peace lasted for only a few seconds. Then his brow furrowed, his arms grasping at something which only he could see. A low moan of despair escaped his throat, and Kagome found herself padding softly across the floor to sit on the bed beside him, instinctively driven to offer whatever comfort she could. She brushed a lock of hair away from his eyes, and discovered that his forehead was drenched with sweat.

"Inuyasha, wake up," she whispered, his pitiful sounds pulling on her heartstrings. But the hanyou only continued to moan and thrash.

"Kagome…no…Kagome…"

That was the last straw for the young miko. Even if he yelled at her for it later, she was going to release him from this torment. A hard nudge to his shoulder had the desired effect. Inuyasha sat up suddenly, but instead of immediately recoiling and demanding an explanation, he continued to stare straight ahead, his eyes lacking their normal fire.

"Inuyasha?" she asked nervously, gasping at the speed of his reaction as his head whirled around to fix his gaze upon her. But again, his normally sharp amber orbs had lost their luster. There was a certain unfocused quality in his stare, intense yet clumsy. If she didn't know any better, she might think he was drunk.

"Cold," he muttered, his gaze shifting lower, to somewhere just below her eyes. Then he was leaning toward her, his eyelids sliding shut as his arm looped around her waist to draw her closer. Kagome squeaked as his lips pressed intimately against her own, the heat of his breath tickling her cheeks. For a moment she was paralyzed by shock. For another moment - a very short moment - she considered pulling away. But then she realized what was happening, and the lovesick part of her decided that she didn't care about the circumstances, or how he would react afterward. The man she loved was kissing her, and she was damn well going to enjoy it.

She melted into him, her lips moving to match his own, her arms circling around his neck of their own volition. For a few blissful moments which seemed to stretch on for hours, they were one. Finally they parted for air, the burgeoning heat building within rapidly driving away Kagome's lingering inhibitions.

"Warm," Inuyasha whispered, his breath a lover's caress against her lips.

It happened so suddenly. It was as though Inuyasha's utterance of that single word caused him to snap back to reality, from wherever he had been up until now. His body stiffened instantly, and the eyes which now stared back at her from mere centimeters away regained their customary alertness, reflecting a stunning cacophony of emotions ranging from confusion to panic, and finally settling on absolute mortification. He was gone in the blink of an eye, and Kagome turned her head just in time to see a flash of red fly out the bedroom door. She heard him vault down the stairs in a single leap and throw open the front door. A few seconds later she felt the telltale magic of the bone eater's well, and knew that he was gone.

Kagome's lungs emptied in a rush, as she raised a shaking hand to her lips. _Did that…did that really just happen?_ Once she gathered her bearings and determined that yes, indeed it had, she flopped back onto the bed as a smile came unbidden to her lips. No, Inuyasha hadn't been himself, and no, he never would have kissed her under normal circumstances. But she knew him, and she knew that he wouldn't have kissed her in _any_ state of mind if he didn't hold some pretty strong feelings for her. Hence the reason for her unbreakable smile.

It took Kagome only a few minutes to come up with a plausible explanation for Inuyasha's behavior, and when she did she laughed merrily for quite some time. His fatigue, combined with his all-night zombie binge and his moaning and calling her name could only lead to one conclusion. He'd been having a nightmare about her turning into a zombie, and had woken suddenly at her behest, still stuck in a semi-delirious state. Obviously, he had still thought that she was one of the undead. _He thought my lips were cold, and then was glad to find that they were warm_. Inuyasha's lips were warm too. A delightful shiver passed through her at the memory.

Kagome wasn't sure how Inuyasha would act the next time she saw him, or even when that would be. But she did know two things. One, that Halloween was her new favorite holiday. And two, that she would definitely be renting some more zombie movies in the very near future.


End file.
